Leisure stuff

Here are some books that I borrowed from the library to calm my occasional “intellectual” curiosity about some subject matters. Current curiosity is vegetarianism/veganism. There are several vegetarian students and there’s also a vegan (purely plant-based diet, no eggs and dairy) in my department and I’m always intriqued by their choice. In Malaysia, most vegetarians that I know of are what I call temporary vegetarians, they go on vegetarian diet some days of the year and mostly due to religious reasons. In the US, it’s seldom a religious reason but more of animal rights, anti-establishment and personal health issues. So I read about it, thought over it and decided at this point in life, there are more important areas that I should focus my efforts into…so no, I’m no vegetarian. But the books were very compelling especially The China Study and the Food Revolution.

Anyway here’s the list of books that I read in the last month and a very short summary of each book.

1. Vegan with a Vengeance by Moskowitz – A vegan cookbook.
2. The Food Revolution by Robbins – How your diet can help save your life and our world.
3. Becoming vegan by Davis & Melina – A general information book about veganism.
4. The China Study by Campbell – Comparing the health of rural Chinese people who eat mostly plant-based diet and Americans with their mostly animal-based diet.
5. Vegetarian America by Iacobbo – The history of vegetarianism in America.
6. Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper – His memoir of war, disasters, and survival. He is my favorite news person.
7. Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat by Moriyama & Doyle – The author’s experience with typical food in the US and her return to her roots, in terms of food.
8. Alton Brown’s Gear for Your Kitchen – AB’s views of, and his favorite kitchen gadgets. He is my favorite Food Network person.

Five-front

This December, there’s a 5K run taking place in Bethlehem. It’s called the Jingle Bell Run and it’s a charity walk/run for the Arthritis Foundation. All runners and walkers will tie little bells on their shoe-laces, and that itself is enough to motivate me to start “training” again. Last year, some graduate students here formed a team and I think on the whole, that team did quite well in the run. However, the temperature is slowly dropping around here and I’m not sure I’m prepared to run in the cold.

Since the Komen Race in NYC, I haven’t been following the Walk/Run program at all. I still go for the runs quite regularly, but not as often as I should and I rarely push myself to go faster or for a longer duration. Today I followed this routine..run 5min: walk 1 min and repeated that seven times. And the temperature was 9C at 5.30pm. I wonder if I could run the 5K in under 30 minutes if I really tried….maybe not, I think I’ll aim for a more realistic target of 35 minutes.

Now that I have the bicycle, I’ll ride to the running track, run/walk, and then ride back…quite fun actually. But I have yet to learn how to shift gears properly, so sometimes when I’m halfway up this tiny hill, it’s already too late and the gears won’t shift at all and I’ll have to push the bicycle

This picture was taken at the beginning of summer. The corn “plants” have now turned brown and dry and the corn is still on the plant! Seems like such a waste, at one time the corn all looked so fresh, green and juicy. If the plants are still there the next time I go for my run, I’ll take a picture of the sad-looking crop.

Moonroof

1. It has a moonroof!
2. I’ve spent $228 in gas, since I got the car at the end of June, 2006
3. I’ve spent $18 in power steering fluid
4. It has leaked 1 gallon (3.79L) of power steering fluid
5. The two front seats have heat controllers
6. I’ve driven 1600miles (2575km) in it
7. I’ve not washed the car once
8. I’ve vacuumed the interior once
9. The check engine light is always on…hahaha
10. In the trunk, there is a bottle of coolant (left by previous owner), 2 bottles of power steering fluid, a small bottle of WD40, a small tube of super glue, a roll of of blue fabric/paper towel-like material (supposedly to be used to wipe auto stuff etc), a tire pressure gage-thing, a snow/ice scraper-brush, a car-door handle, and a bicycle pump.

VW Passat

The COE librarian invited me over to her place this evening for a casual supper to welcome three Fulbrighters to Lehigh, and it was so nice to answer her email by saying I’d love to come and have no “but I’ll need a ride.” The other day, I drove to the small group meeting and once again it was great not needing a ride. And now I’m even picking up another student to church and then to grocery shopping after that.

Today I went to Klein’s garage and have them take a look at the faulty driver’s side power window and door. I was adviced to not turn down the window and because the door refuses to open from the outside when the window is closed, so in order to open the driver’s door, I have to go in via the back door, stretch out to the front door handle, pull it open, and with one hand making sure the front door doesn’t close, get out from the backdoor still making sure the front door doesnt close, go around the back door then close the back door and get in the front door. Or I could actually get in front the front passenger side and climb over to the driver’s side, maybe I should try that tomorrow. I have an appointment to drop off my car next Monday for them to take it apart and fix the problem and I have no idea how much that would cost me. And I have yet to get the power steering rack fixed but since the temperature is dropping, the power steering fluid isn’t leaking as much. But I do feel bad polluting the environment (or Duh’s parking lot) with power steering fluid.

Anyway, the dinner party was to welcome three Fulbright scholarship holders to Lehigh’s college of education. One of them is from Singapore, another from Maldives but actually went to Inti College in Subang, and the third is from Mali and tells me there are a lot of Malaysians in the construction arena in Mali. It’s a small world after all.

Tomyam soup

I made a whole big pot of tomyam soup that will last me many meals.

Ingredients list:
Nappa cabbage
Celery
Onion
Baby carrots
Canned whole tomatoes
Cili padi
Firm tofu
Ikan bilis stock cube
Tomyam paste

A view from NHC

Here’s a view of the exterior of the Northwood Medical Arts building from inside the center. Sometimes birds actually crash into the glass windows.

NHC waiting area

Here’s a picture of the waiting room at the Northwood Hand Center.

Piles of magazines

Here’s a photo of the Northwood Hand Center that has become so familiar during the summer. Notice the pile of magazines? The center is a lot bigger than what’s being pictured here: 3 other tables and other therapeutic equipments.

Panfried tempeh

And this is what panfried tempeh looks like.

Tofu and tempeh

I was going to write an entry comparing university life in Msia to the US, but found that it takes too much analyzing and generalizing, and then I thought I’ll write about my graduate assistantship work, and writing that feels more like work than leisure. So in the end, I think I’ll blog about tempeh instead.

I don’t remember ever eating tempeh in Malaysia. That word sounds familiar and I know it’s soybean related, but I never came across it back home. So after reading about it so much in vegetarian books, I decided I must give tempeh a try. The other day, this original soy tempeh was on sale at $1.99 so I bought one to try. I’m sure the price is many times that sold in some Msian markets. It turned out to be quite good, marinated in soy sauce and sesame seed oil and pan fried. I also added some tempeh into my eggplant/brinjal/terung, okra/ladies fingers/bendi, lentil, green split pea, chickpea/garbanzo/kacang kuda, and green bean curry….a very vegetarian curry.